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This site is the inspiration of a former reporter/photographer for one of New England's largest daily newspapers and for various magazines. The intent is to direct readers to interesting political articles, and we urge you to visit the source sites. Any comments may be noted on site or directed to KarisChaf at gmail.

Friday, February 21, 2014

In June 2012 the U.S. Supreme Court had a chance to derail a vast
expansion of government power by the Obama administration. But the court
wound up ruling that ObamaCare was constitutional, even if the
rationale provided by Chief Justice John Roberts for his deciding vote
contradicted the opinions of the four liberal justices who joined with
him to form a 5-4 majority as well as the arguments of the government on
behalf of the law. But next week the Court will have yet another
opportunity to brush back the president’s fast and loose approach to the
Constitution when it will hear arguments concerning the president’s use
of executive orders.

The case concerns the Environmental Protection Agency’s attempt
to use existing laws in order to give itself the power to regulate
emissions from power plants even though the legislation in question says
nothing about the federal government having such a right. But more than
the proper interpretation of the Clean Air Act will be at stake when
the justices vote. As important as efforts to restrain the EPA’s desire
to act as a benevolent dictator may be, the crucial point here is
whether the president can, as he boasted he would do in his State of the
Union address last month, ignore Congress and govern by the use of
executive orders. If, as was the case with the court’s perplexing
ObamaCare decision, the president gets a pass to do as he likes, the
consequences may affect a wide range of topics beyond the contentious
debate about the White House’s obsession with climate change.

As I noted here yesterday,
the president has already begun making good on his SOTU pledge by
announcing his intention to issue executive orders regulating emissions
from large trucks that will mandate large-scale and expensive changes in
that industry. But the EPA’s decision to give itself the power to
regulate existing power plants makes that power grab look like small
change.

....

Given other court decisions that have given the EPA vast powers, it’s
far from clear that even a setback for the administration will halt its
campaign to overhaul the economy in order to comply with the
president’s beliefs about climate change. But the impact of a precedent
that would allow him to act as a benevolent dictator to force industries
to obey his “green” marching orders means more than just the possible
shutdown of hundreds of coal-firing power plants around the nation. It
would mean a decisive shift in the balance of power between Congress and
the executive branch that could shelve the notion of checks and
balances that have enabled our constitutional republic to function.

Over the years both Congress and the courts have often acquiesced in a
process whereby the executive branch has grown by leaps and bounds to
assume the sort of influence and power that would have been unimaginable
to the founders. But so long as the legislative and judicial branches
retain the power to write and then interpret the laws, even the federal
leviathan can be held in check. But if Justice Roberts and the Supreme
Court allow President Obama to get away with not only selectively
enforcing laws but also re-writing them on the fly, our system of
government will have been fundamentally altered for the worse.

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